the hindu temple
The Hindu Temple is a central element in all aspects of everyday life in the Hindu community. To a Hindu, the temple is significant not only for its religious elements, but also for the elements of culture, society, and education that it brings to the community (Batchelor). Temples are an integral part in the life of any Hindus, whether he or she lives in Northern India, Southern India, or as far away as the United States. Hindu temples have been being built in India for thousands of years, and as is the case with any structure with such far-reaching boundaries of time and location, structural differences will exist between the temples of the different areas. The temple is an integral part in the daily life of Hinduisms. Not merely a pretty building to look at and admire, to a Hindu the temple is the center of intellectual, artistic, spirituals, educational, and social elements of daily life. The temple "is a place where God may be approached and where divine knowledge can be discovered" (Batchelor). For this reason, the "temple is designed to dissolve the boundaries between man and the divine. Not merely his abode, the temple 'is' God. God, and therefore by implication the whole universe, is identified with the temple's
The northern Nagara style is characterized by a beehive shaped tower (called a shikhara, in northern terminology), which rises in a massive conical shape (Batchelor). "The plan is based on a square but the walls are sometimes so broken up that the tower often gives the impression of being circular" (Batchelor). The room itself is small, and the statue is nine feet tall. Southern style temples are classified as Dravidian. The floor plan is divided into squares, usually either 64 or 81, the central nine of which are occupied by Brahma, with the rest occupied by various planetary divinities, such as the Sun and the Moon (Michell 71). In the construction of a Hindu temple, very strict attention is payed to iconometry and proportions as well (Michell 72). "Along these walls, ideally set up along the east-west axes, elaborate and often magnificent gateways called gopurams led the devotees into the sacred courtyard" (Batchelor). This link to social and spiritual can be seen in the architecture of the temples. The southernmost portions of India developed different architectural plans for their temples. Before this, however, not much is known about the architecture or existence of the Hindu temples. It is possible that they were built in wood (Rao 24), as was much of early Indian architecture, and have since disappeared, or is possible that they did not exist at all, although this is not very likely. Located around the vast statue are smaller statues of consorts to Vishnu. In one Hindu text, it is warned that if an image is "not made with the prescribed rules and proportions. However, southern temples developed large, complex gateways that rivaled the temple itself in appearance. The visual structure of the two different temple types is easy to identify.
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